Latest news with #FloridaSkywatchers
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ludicrous ‘chemtrails' bill in Florida Legislature addresses silly conspiracy theory
Photo courtesy of Florida Skywatchers Facebook page. TALLAHASSSEE — If you're one of the 900 new people who move to Florida every day, you may not know this crucial secret of Florida government. I'm a Florida native, so let me clue you in. Lean in close and I'll whisper it in your ear. Are you ready? The Florida Legislature contains more cuckoos than a Swiss clock factory. Now that you're aware of this fact, how are you holding up? How's your blood pressure? Can you handle the truth? You want some evidence? Just last year, a legislator claimed his new anti-bear bill was necessary because there were bears on crack invading people's houses. This was, of course, a complete fantasy. Yet his colleagues didn't question his sanity or call the paramedics. They just passed the bill. It's the law now! This year there's one that's even kookier. I am referring to the so-called 'chemtrails' bill. In case you're unfamiliar with that debunked conspiracy theory, the folks who believe in 'chemtrails' are convinced the government (or maybe it's the Illuminati) is dispatching planes to fly over us unsuspecting Americans and spray chemicals on us. Why? The chemtrails can change the weather, say the diehards. Or maybe they can control people's minds. Or maybe they're just going to poison everybody they don't like. Who knows? After all, it's a secret, like the 1947 UFO crash landing in New Mexico. Anyway, there's a bill in the Legislature to track and attack chemtrails. Instead of being laughed out of the Capitol building, as it deserves, the bill was just passed by the full Senate, because that's what our state's elected leaders are like right now. I wish I could tell you the 'Looney Tunes' theme song played while they voted. 'The measure (SB 56), sponsored by Miami Republican Ileana Garcia, would prohibit the injection, release, or dispersion of any means of a chemical, chemical compound, substance, or apparatus into the atmosphere for the purpose of affecting the climate,' my colleague Mitch Perry reported in the Phoenix last week. 'Any person or corporation who conducts such geoengineering or weather modification activity would be subject to a third-degree felony charge, with fines up to $100,000.' The bill would require the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to set up a hotline so anyone concerned about streaks in the sky can call and report them. I'm sure the DEP will jump right on those reports, just the way the agency has jumped on reports of rampant water pollution that fuels toxic algae blooms, kills seagrass, and leaves manatees to starve. I tried calling Sen. Garcia to ask her some questions about her bill. While I waited to talk to her, I was struck by a subversive thought: What if the chemtrails bill becomes law and we folks who still live in the real world use it to flip the script? What if we employ its provisions to go after the people who really ARE changing the weather — with their greenhouse gas emissions? The most shocking thing about this chemtrails bill is not that it was filed — filed, I should add, by a senator who won her seat by just 32 votes, thanks to an illegal ghost candidate scheme backed by Florida Power & Light. Nor is the most shocking thing that it passed one house of our Legislature by a vote of 28-9 and now is headed for the other. No, what's shocking is that it was endorsed by Senate President Ben Albritton and Gov. Ron DeSantis, two allegedly well-educated people. At this rate, they'll next endorse a taxpayer-funded expedition to explore how we ended up living inside a Hollow Earth. Actually, DeSantis' endorsement isn't that much of a surprise. He's happy to appease the Tinfoil Hat Brigade if it gets him a mention on Fox News or its imitators. Remember, DeSantis is the guy who appointed as his surgeon general the world's biggest vaccine skeptic and now lets him run around the state trying to convince everyone to stop preventing children's tooth decay. I sometimes wonder if he and RFK Jr. share a brain worm. But Albritton's comments threw me. He's a longtime citrus man who's familiar with the need for accurate weather forecasts. Yet he actually called this lunacy 'a great piece of legislation' that would address 'real concerns from our constituents.' If some of those constituents also think their elected politicians are all lizard people, presumably he'd be fine with legislation requiring a reptilian DNA test before administering the oath of office. 'I have heard the conspiracy theories out there,' Albritton said about Garcia's bill, 'but the fact is we should not be shutting down legitimate concerns. Healthy skepticism is important. There's a lot we don't know in this field of science and people are rightfully concerned.' Because I grew up in Florida, I have a healthy skepticism toward anything Florida politicians say. Albritton's statement suggests that I'm right to be skeptical because there's a lot that's wrong with his comments. We actually know quite a lot about the weather modification attempts. We know they don't work and have mostly been discontinued. Florida law currently requires anyone who wants to modify the weather to get a permit first. A Senate bill analysis of SB 56 points out, 'There have been no applications for weather modification licenses in the past 10 years.' Four years ago, eight Western states tried cloud seeding to produce rains to end a lengthy drought. However, Scientific American reported, 'there is little evidence to show that the process is increasing precipitation.' Yet 'weather modification' is what our Legislature chooses to tackle instead of lowering property insurance rates, boosting educational test scores, or any one of a dozen more important issues. Maybe they're under some bizarre mind control method that requires them to be ineffective at good governing. Albritton's statement about people being 'rightfully concerned' about chemtrails sounds like he's endorsing the bogus claims that spread last year that the government steered two hurricanes to clobber specific communities ahead of the election. Those rumors were, of course, lies spread by the unscrupulous to fool the gullible. They became so pervasive that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had to put out a press release denying it. 'NOAA does not modify the weather, nor does it fund, participate in or oversee cloud seeding or any other weather modification activities,' it said. Given how Elon Musk is rapidly dismantling the agency now, I doubt they can control the thermostat in their office buildings, much less the weather. I wish Albritton were as supportive of the 'legitimate concerns' many of us Floridians feel about climate change. We're on the front lines of it, with our rising sea levels, more intense hurricanes, higher storm surges, and increased temperatures even at night. It's hurting everything from our seafood industry to our sea turtle nesting. Heck, it's even hurting Albritton's own industry, agriculture. Hard-headed property insurance companies recognize the dangers and disruptions of climate change. Why can't our state officials? 'If lawmakers want to protect Floridians by addressing substances affecting the temperature, weather, and climate, they should hold power companies and the oil and gas industry accountable,' said longtime Florida climate activist Susan Glickman of the CLEO Institute, a non-profit dedicated to climate education and advocacy. 'The pollution they release is warming the climate in increasingly extreme and deadly ways.' But last year the Legislature voted to delete most references to climate change from state law under the well-known scientific theory of 'If We Don't Talk About It, Surely It Will Go Away.' Given how we were all beaten up by intense hurricanes and big storm surges last year, I don't think it went away. Fortunately, I see a way to take this 'chemtrails' bill and turn it into a 'let's fight climate change' bill. Let me explain. I have a confession to make: Every time I read someone's rants about chemtrails, I always crack up. That's because I always picture Cary Grant fleeing the evil crop-duster in the movie 'North by Northwest,' which is the silliest and most inefficient murder method ever attempted. Was the pilot supposed to crash into Cary and kill himself too? Cut Cary's head off with the propeller, which would make the plane stop flying? Or maybe force him to cough up a lung because of all the pesticide he was inhaling? None of these options seem practical. Similarly, the whole chemtrails theory falls apart on practical questions. How often and how much do you need to spray those chemicals in the sky to affect everyone? There are 23 million people in Florida alone. That's a lot of folks to spritz with your mind-control concoction. Seems to me you'd need WAAAAAY more chemical spraying than what we're seeing if you plan to coat every single one of us with the goop. You'd need to dump it out in quantities like the helicopter pilots dropping the contents of an entire pond on a wildfire. Nope, what we're seeing up in the sky are simple contrails — droplets of water vapor clinging to particles of soot that were emitted by an airplane's engine. So imagine my surprise when Rafe Pomerance of Rethink Energy Florida told me, 'Water vapor is a greenhouse gas.' 'Say what now?' I replied, displaying my usual incisive intellect. 'You warm up the earth, and one of the effects is an increase of water vapor in the atmosphere,' he explained. Then the vapor traps heat in our atmosphere just like carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases do. The heat that created the vapor gets amplified by the vapor. When I expressed that old healthy skepticism, he referred me to a scientist named Adam Boies of Stanford University. He's an expert on contrails. He confirmed that chemtrails are bogus and also confirmed what Pomerance told me. Some of the contrails disappear in minutes after the plane that created them leaves the area, Boies said. But some, say about 20%, linger longer. Those are the dangerous ones that can trap heat in the atmosphere. Airplane engine manufacturers are worried about this so they are working on engine designs that will stop producing contrails, he said. 'The airlines are so concerned about this that they're willing to try new fuels or rerouting flight patterns to try to avoid them,' Boies told me. Thus, for once, the Legislature might do the right thing for the wrong reason — asking people to report something that actually is a cause of climate change. That's why I think we should embrace this silly chemtrails bill and join DeSantis and Albritton in pushing it forward. Then, once the bill passes, I say we all start contacting that DEP hotline to report, say, Florida Power & Light and its fellow utilities for burning fossil fuels to produce electricity. They're building a lot of solar farms now, but they ought to replace their older plants too. The same goes for all the municipal incinerators across the state, too, and the Big Sugar companies burning their fields and sending billows of thick smoke into the communities south of Lake Okeechobee. I say we report every one of these folks messing up our state. 'Hello, DEP,' we can say, 'there's a chemical plant in Pensacola that's altering the weather with its nitrous oxide emissions. The clouds of pollutants are going up in the atmosphere and trapping heat here! You should do something about that, pronto.' Or how about, 'Hello, is this the DEP? I want to report someone for altering the weather. It's the Florida DOT. They're building a lot of roads for heavily polluting cars and trucks and doing nothing for mass transit. No electric vehicle charging stations, either. Can you get after them for that?' By the way, I never did reach the bill's sponsor, Sen. Garcia. It's too bad. I was ready to congratulate her for doing more to combat climate change than either DeSantis or his predecessor, Rick Scott. Of course, to hear me speak, she'd first have to unwrap all that tinfoil from around her head. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Florida Senate approves ban on geoengineering and weather modification
Photo courtesy of Florida Skywatchers Facebook page A proposal to ban weather-modification projects that have been denounced by some conspiracy theorists as 'chemtrails' has been approved by the Florida Senate. The measure (SB 56), sponsored by Miami Republican Ileana Garcia, would prohibit the injection, release, or dispersion of any means of a chemical, chemical compound, substance, or apparatus into the atmosphere for the purpose of affecting the climate. Any person or corporation who conducts such geoengineering or weather modification activity would be subject to a third-degree felony charge, with fines up to $100,000. If an aircraft operator or controller commits a third-degree felony, they could be subject to a fine up to $5,000 and up to five years in prison. 'There is a lot of unauthorized activity that is currently not regulated both at a federal and a state level, and this is where we wanted to start,' Garcia told members of the Senate. 'This is how we are trying to create a method to the madness by creating a reporting mechanism that starts with complaints to the Department of Environmental Protection [DEP] with complaints and concerns and then also at our local state airports.' In questions on the Senate floor, Broward County Democrat Tina Polsky asked Garcia how could the DEP accurately investigate such a complaint if the 'trail' dissipates in the atmosphere? Garcia replied that the DEP could coordinate with other agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and 'based on certain concerns or certain complaints or certain criteria' could decide what was 'worthy' of following up on a more scientific basis. The Miami Republican acknowledged that there were 'conspiracy theories' regarding the issue, and said that while she didn't want to get political, concerns about geoengineering had accelerated under former President Joe Biden. 'The previous administration … sort of opened up that area of allowing, I would say, apprentices to a certain extent based on a lot of the research that I'd seen or just various companies, various corporations from across the world, to come into our atmosphere and start experimenting with, whether it's rock weathering, whether it's solar radiation modification, whether it's cloud seeding — something as simple as sending up a $30 balloon that you can buy on Amazon with specific chemicals so that you can alter the weather or solar radiation,' she said. 'It seems very concerning to me. I have a problem with people spraying perfume next to me sometimes. Don't you have a problem with people spraying things into the atmosphere that really have no type of empirical data?' The measure passed the Senate on a 28-9 vote. Following the vote, Senate President Ben Albritton praised Garcia for producing a 'great piece of legislation.' Healthy skepticism is important,' he said in a written statement. 'People have a right to know what is happening. There's a lot we don't know in this field of science and people are rightfully concerned.' Gov. Ron DeSantis posted on social media a video announcing his support for Garcia's bill, but slammed the House version (HB 477), sponsored by Pasco County Republican Kevin Steele, saying that it's 'gutted' Garcia's measure. 'They would actually codify the practice of geoengineering and weather modification,' DeSantis said. 'People got a lot of kooky ideas that they can get in and put things in the atmosphere to block the sun and save us from climate change. We're not playing that game in Florida.' Steele's bill has one more committee to get through before making it to the floor of the House. Last month, Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a social media post that banning geoengineering 'is a movement every MAHA needs to support.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
